At Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center, volunteers and staff were busy opening boxes and sorting donations on Wednesday for DCAC’s Holiday of Hope campaign.
“This is my favorite time of year,” DCAC Director of Advocacy Services Hannah Counter said. “It injects so much joy into this space, and it is beautiful!”
Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center helps more than 1,300 children who have been abused or neglected, or who have witnessed a violent crime. In many cases, the alleged perpetrator is the family’s primary or secondary income. Holiday of Hope is meant to take the financial stress off a family in crisis.
“It’s not the gift itself, but it is knowing that our caregivers get to retain their dignity,” Counter said. “Because they are the ones that are getting to put the gifts under the tree so that those kiddos can open those gifts on Christmas morning.”
Every year, two large rooms at DCAC are turned into a pop-up store for caregivers to Christmas shop, free. Volunteer, Dr. Hope Shepherd, is a family medicine physician with Methodist Charlton. She said sometimes she gets a child in her exam room who needs to be referred to DCAC. She thinks about them as she volunteers, sorting gifts for Holiday of Hope.
“They live in a heavy world every single day of their lives, and so to open something that’s meaningful to say, you know, I want a toy, I want to pretend those are amazing things I want to keep alive in childhood,” Shepherd said.
Each child gets multiple gifts, including toys, books, games, blankets, bikes, and more. Their siblings also get gifts. All of the gifts come from donations from DCAC’s wish lists, if you’d like to donate. Some host toy drives to collect donations.
“I think for them our goal is to inject as much normalcy as possible, right? And yet, this is not about the gifts,” Counter said. “But what child wants to wake up on Christmas morning and not have gifts to open?”